UCLA In the News May 2, 2018

Using one of the best-known tools for measuring loneliness — the UCLA Loneliness Scale — Cigna surveyed 20,000 adults online across the country. The University of California, Los Angeles tool uses a series of statements and a formula to calculate a loneliness score based on responses. Scores on the UCLA scale range from 20 to 80. People scoring 43 and above were considered lonely in the Cigna survey, with a higher score suggesting a greater level of loneliness and social isolation. (Also: KTLA-TV, Fortune, Sacramento Bee, Washington Times, Cox Media Group, Health Medicine Network)

But California’s power to enforce sales targets for zero-emissions vehicles is tied up with its power to set independent tailpipe standards, said Ann E. Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Los Angeles. By imposing a sales requirement for zero emission cars, California is “telling manufacturers they can’t have anything coming out of the tailpipes,” Prof. Carlson said. (Also: UCLA’s Sean Hecht was quoted on KPCC-FM’s “AirTalk” )

She called his office and was referred to Dr. Aria Fallah, a pediatric neurosurgeon at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. Fallah listened carefully as the young woman and her parents described her horrible past weeks — the jerky, blurred vision, the light sensitivity, the terrible headaches and now the weakness and pain in her legs.

“One potential consequence of the filing of this lawsuit could be EPA changing its timeline on figuring out what to do with the California waiver,” says Cara Horowitz, a professor of environmental law at the UCLA School of Law. “EPA is going to make that decision soon.” But, she adds, “it was going to make that decision soon yesterday, too,” before the latest lawsuit was filed. (Also: KCRW-FM [Audio download], Bloomberg)

“He should spend the next few months listening to small groups of students, parents, community leaders, teachers, principals, and other staff about their hopes and concerns for the district,” said UCLA education professor John Rogers.

Some macroeconomists, like Roger Farmer of the University of California–Los Angeles, have been experimenting with behavioral models for years. But recently, a number of high-profile stars in the field have shifted in a behavioral direction.

UCLA geneticists have created a new technique to hunt for hormones that influence how organs and tissues communicate with each other. The method enabled them to find naturally occurring molecules that play major roles in Type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The study “Consumer Choice and Market Outcomes Under Ambiguity in Product Quality,” will be published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, is co-authored by Onesun Steve Yoo of UCL School of Management at University College London, and Rakesh Sarin of the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. (Also: Scienmag)

“I think I was a little bit lucky, in that early on there were a couple of fun experiments that just worked,” [UCLA’s Valerie Arboleda] says. While working on a project examining cerebral ischemia, she was able to use qPCR to confirm that microRNAs had been transfected into cultured mouse neuronal cells and successfully knocked down a targeted gene. This motivated her to further investigate the biology behind this experiment, Arboleda recalls. “I kind of got hooked after that.”